[JohCol]

The DNA testing done to date has confirmed that the people of the Pictish regions of Scotland, i.e., the NE, are genetically 95% similar to the Basques, which makes the Pictish NE probably the "purest" 'proto-basque' population of the British Isles, given that apart from a few anglicised Briton and Flemish merchant immigrants the people of NE Scotland are the same as they always have been. Indigenous, as it were. My own NE Scottish DNA testing is 95% matched to the Basque population of the Pyrenees. It should be noted that Columba, the gaelic speaking Irishman, needed an interpreter to prosleytize the Picts...perhaps they were speaking a Basque derivative as recently as the early middle ages. As well, genetically, the Western Norwegian Vikings who settled Orkney and Sheltand, are quite distinct -- more paleo, and probably more proto-basque themselves -- from the other Scandinavian vikings, namely the thoroughly indo-European Danes and Swedes and Vandals and Goths....

[WoofDog123]

That is very interesting; off the top of my head, the implication seems to be that the picts, like the basques, are the remnant of a widespread migration across western europe before recorded history. It isn't impossible that they were actually one of the first wide migrations since the ice melted; i.e. stone age.

I didn't know that about colomba needing an interpreter; I am not sure if he would have needed one for a p-celtic language, or if he even spoke/understood p-celtic enough to do his work. The lack of almost any pictish language remnants is a real mystery. How it disappeared quietly with no visible trace baffles me.

Do you know of any other ethnic groups with high %-correlation to basque dna?

[Cronos]

I would think that the Picts are not related to the Celts at all.